SimplePay, an electronic payments innovator headquartered in Sydney, Australia, has secured an initial $5m USD from Fluce Capital and Versatile Group.
Image: SimplePay raises $5m of private capital investment to bring more interactive and connected digital payments to smart cities of the future. Photo: courtesy of Go to rawpixel's profile rawpixel/Unsplash.com.
This initial amount is part of a private placement round to raise growth capital to continue to accelerate SimplePay’s business model, where they already work with over 500+ cities around the world.
SimplePay a fast growing technology business provides a unified payment layer that connects payments infrastructure that enables concise, connected & intelligent multi step payment journeys, that delivers key data insight that gives a city commercial pulse. The first step towards full Smart City integration.
“This investment round will give us sufficient growth capital to scale our operations and implement our solutions globally,” mentions Shadi Haddad Founder SimplePay Group. “We have an efficient business model where we are embedded into the retail, global transit & hospitality sectors with our infrastructure partners, delivering customer centric payment journeys using our unified payment and revenue assurance solutions.”
The investment supports a growth trajectory that has seen SimplePay establish a foothold in the payments sector, and provide services to government and private operators in Australia, New Zealand, Europe & America. Since it was co-founded by Shadi Haddad in 2012, SimplePay has connected more than 14,000 locations onto its Smart City infrastructure.
“I often see retailers treat payments as a necessity, rather than an opportunity. I am excited to be a part of the journey with SimplePay as they innovate the payments sector,” explains Marco Fahd, CEO Versatile Group.
SimplePay’s cloud-based payments platform reduces the need for consumers to repeatedly present payment instruments and identity documentation at each step in their journey. The technology is capable of providing deep data insight to government and for managing a cities infrastructure across multi payment journeys – private parking, transit and hospitality (hotel) operators connected into existing ticketing hardware and booking engines.
“Traditional payment systems are built around 60-year old technology that no longer caters for a modern Smart City’s requirements,” said Chris Hicks, CEO. “We’ve developed a fast and easy to deploy solution tailored for residents & visitors of Smart Cities that enhances their experience, delivering real time data insight for those who plan and manage the cities commercial needs and business flows.”
This investment round will enable SimplePay to increase its coverage to over 40,000 locations within the next 24 months, covert the current long pipeline and allow for a stronger entrance into the EMEA, GCC and Asian markets.
In a recent article, “The Pulse of a City” technology and Blockchain evangelist Nick Ayton CEO Chainstarter Group made the following comment about SimplePay’s technology as it relates to mass mobility as a Unified Payments Journey, “As people arrive in the city they reveal themselves, what their intentions are, what they are up to, via airline and hotel booking systems, taxis and UBER accounts, ticketing at stations and metros, restaurants and places of attraction (zoos, conferences, hospitals, museums, shows), carparks, shops and malls, any place that takes payment, which is pretty much everywhere. With SimplePay it is possible to know when they are coming, for the city to prepare for their journey ahead of time.”
Source: Company Press Release